Fair is Foul
by AutumnMobile12
Summary: While investigating a series of murders on Fleet Street, the Hellsing Organization uncovers a ghastly find.


Fair is Foul

 _It smells like death._

Mina wrinkled her nose as she stood at the top of the stairs leading into the abyss. At least, what she figured her comrades took to be an abyss, for her inhuman eyes revealed only an empty and rather steep stairwell descending into the pie shop's hidden sub-level. It looked innocent. In any other circumstances, she'd have thought it was an ordinary storehouse or wine cellar. Given the stench of death seemed to rise from the depths, though, the only conclusion to be had was they had finally found the disappeared persons of East End.

She sighed and trailed her tongue absently over her fangs. Behind her, she could hear Jonathan's heart rate quickening as he presumably covered his nose and mouth. Captain Nemo, on the other hand, remained perfectly placid. A remarkable feat, truly, and she smiled at the man. The captain did not smile back. Another sigh escaped her cold lips, "Well, ladies first, I suppose." She murmured, carefully holding her red skirts away from her boots as she descended the stairs. Her husband was quick to follow, drawing his pistol from within his jacket, then Captain Nemo. "Watch your step, gentlemen."

"I can barely see a thing." Jonathan muttered, nearly trodding on her skirts. "Heaven knows how that Lovett woman has avoided falling down these forsaken steps."

"Practice, I imagine." Mina answered as she reached the bottom, only to freeze at the sight of a man kneeling on the stone floor. There was a woman in his arms, for a moment, she thought they were maybe still alive, but as she crept forward, she quickly discerned these two souls had already flown. The smell of fresh blood was so strong here, her crystal blue eyes flashed red and she felt the effects of a blood rage teasing at her sanity. _It smells delicious…_

"So ends the demon barber's reign of Fleet Street." Captain Nemo declared gravely.

Jonathan nodded in agreement. Mina just gripped her arm, driving her nails into her flesh in hopes the dull pain would calm her down. She needn't have bothered. A whiff of burning flesh shortly caught her attention and she turned to the large oven across the chamber. Why was the smell so much stronger there? Had Todd and Lovett realized they'd been discovered and were desperately trying to dispose of the remaining bodies. Raising an eyebrow, she grasped the heavy metal door and pulled it open. "Oh!"

"What is it?" Jonathan glanced up at her.

Mina slammed the door shut again and shook her head. "Bloody hell, there's a body in there."

"Could you tell whose?" The captain asked her.

Mina's eyes narrowed in annoyance. Inhuman and undead as she was, how was she supposed to know that? There was nothing but charred bones and some thoroughly cooked flesh in there, neither of which would provide and easy identification. She sniffed and turned her head away indigantly, "No, Captain. But if I were to guess, I think it was the pie shop proprietor."

"But why would that be?" Jonathan queried, running a hand through his prematurely white hair. No doubt he was imagining how to compile his report to the Professor later. "All the evidence suggests the two of them were hand in glove, does it not?"

"Perhaps—" Mina was interrupted by a faint grinding noise far above her, like clock gears. Except instead of the chiming of a stately grandfather clock, the sound of a man screaming followed. Her companions, who hadn't heard the initial grinding or screaming, raised their respective weapons and focused their gazes on a large shaft set into the ceiling. "What on earth is that?"

"A passage from the upper levels?" Captain Nemo guessed, frowning.

Mina wrung her wrists as she listened to the screams. Were they getting closer? Yes, they were! And if Nemo was right, and the passage went all the way to the second level of the shop, then surely their companions upstairs would've found the other end of the passage. She was just about to voice this thought when Dr. Jekyll quite suddenly dropped from the chute, landing with a sickening crunch on the stone floor and startling all three of them.

The doctor lay dazed on the stone floor, blinking rapidly at their, to his eyes, inverted forms in confusion. Certainly, Mina could not blame the poor man. What a horrid shock, falling suddenly from a hole in the floor. If that was indeed the case. Nonetheless, a smile crossed her face as she could not resist venturing, "Why, good doctor, how kind of you to drop in." She ignored the withering looks from her comrades as their resident dualist staggered to his feet, holding his head in his hands and groaning in pain.

"What in God's name happened up there, man?" Jonathan demanded, not quite over the shock of the doctor suddenly dropping from nowhere.

"Allow me a moment, Mr. Harker. My head is still spinning."

"Your head is bleeding." Mina pointed out, kneeling by his side to inspect the damage. "Will you recover?"

Dr. Jekyll nodded carefully. "Presently, my lady."

The young woman nodded in understanding, then rose to meet the others. "While I'm thrilled to have solved the case, I fear we have one question that remains unanswered, gentlemen."

Jonathan nodded in agreement. "Who was it that killed Mr. Todd?"

"Exactly."

"Can you find any trace of another person down here?" Captain Nemo asked as he inspected the kneeling corpse. "From the look of these wounds and the absence of the weapon responsible, it's clear the demon barber did not take his own life."

Mina took in a breath of air and frowned, her nose wrinkling as she sniffed the air. Blood. Human flesh. Pastry. Charcoal and fire. Damp. Rats. Corpses. Sewage— _there_ was something. She strode across the cellar until she found a small grate in the floor from which she she heard the flow of water. It absolutely reeked of rot and human waste, but there was another scent that held her attention. Another person had been down there, hiding, their smell masked by the gore and sewage.

"What do you make of it?" Captain Nemo asked, stepping forward to view the grate himself.

"Someone else was here, hiding in the sewer."

The captain frowned. "But that grate is such a small passage. Only a child could fit through."

"Then perhaps a child has done this dreadful thing." Mina raised her head. "Or is it monstrous to slay a monster, Captain?"

This he did not deign to answer, and the vampire lady grinned, displaying all her fangs. All joking aside, if someone had indeed been hiding in the grate, then that someone had most definitely been a child. Or perhaps a very thin man, but according to Dr. Skinner's reports from his observing of the shop, the former was more likely. Lovett's apprentice, called Toby, family name unknown, orphan, homeless child, and now without employment. Not to mention long gone after this whole mess. Mina inhaled the musty, cloying air, wondering if picking up the boy's scent was a possibility. With the Demon Barber of Fleet Street already dead, she doubted Hellsing would be interested in his killer. Theirs was not the conventional justice.

Her nose flared at a sudden whiff of human excrement in the sewer and she stalked away in digust.

"The passage indeed goes all the way up to the barber shop on the second floor." Dr. Jekyll was explaining to her husband. "Whilst Gray and myself were exploring the shop, I took a seat in the chair to rest my legs and...I suppose Gray found some manner of button or lever because the next I knew, I was falling down here."

"So he slits his victims' throats up there." Jonathan pointed the barrel of his pistol up the body chute. "Then he employs a self-built mechanism to send them flying down here without having to move the bodies himself, therefore transporting bodies without the risk of ever being seen."

"Madness." Captain Nemo growled.

"Genius." Mina smiled at the dead man kneeling on the floor. "You're quite resourceful, aren't you, my dead fellow."

The corpse did not answer. Of course it could never answer, but as Mina knelt on the stone floor to study the handiwork of the unconfirmed assassin, an idea came to her. He would never rise up as she had, but there were other ways.

"I think I'm going to keep this one." Without giving any of them time to react, she lunged forward and sank her serrated teeth deep into the dead man's throat. Tart, copper blood filled her mouth and she drank it greedily, gulping it down without reserve, and with it came a torrent of memories that very nearly drowned her own. An unfortunate life half-spent in the East End, half-spent in the foulest of prisons. A faint trace of hope in the form of a dear wife and a baby daughter waiting for him at home. Hope, injustice, betrayal, despair, and a hatred strong enough to commit murder. It was the sweetest, most savory soul she'd ever devoured. A low sigh crawled from her throat as she pulled away, fixing her blood red eyes on her new pet. "Lucy is a cursed name." She growled. "From this day hence, you will be my faithful servant. You shall obey my every command and fight in my name without question until you are either dead or I have dismissed you. Do we have an understanding, Mr. Todd?"

The wretched creature slowly raised its head and met her gaze with a pair of baleful eyes.

Mina grinned. "Don't give me that look. I've just postponed your plunge into the depths of Hell, demon." With a wave of her hand, the specter joined the rank and file with Sawney Beane and the Ulthar Cats. "Well, gentlemen, I do believe our work here is complete. Let us vacate the premises immediately."

"I agree." The eloquent voice of a man called from the stairs, and all turned to see Mr. Dorian Gray standing there, cane in hand, tophat tucked in the crook of his arm. "I would hate to explain my presence here to the Yard, and I am sure the rest of you feel the same."

Jonathan rose, helping Dr. Jekyll to his feet. "Quite." He cast a wary look to Mina, whose heart sank. She hated it when he seemed afraid. "What of you, dear? Do you see anything else?"

Mina glanced around the cellar, paused over a particular corner here and there, regarded the oven where the smoldering Mrs. Lovett's body lay, then shook her head. "No. I am finished. Sawney? And the Ulthar Cats, too, I suppose. Destroy the evidence if you please."

From the darkest corners of the cellar, a thousand green and yellow eyes appeared. Shadows of cats, yowling and hissing, began to stalk forward her, followed by a man so far gone with savagery he could hardly be called a man at all. They gathered in the dark corners of the cellar, swelling in numbers until, by some unspoken agreement, they fell upon the finished pies and uncooked human meat, devouring as they went. "Be sure not to leave a single scrap, my loves." Mina smiled, licking blood off her thumb, then she turned to her companions. "Let's go."

-0-0-0-

"What did you mean when you said Lucy was a cursed name?"

Mina gripped Jonathan's arm as she leaned her head against his shoulder. As soon as the fire was set, the rest of their band had gone their separate ways, as per their habits. After all, a party that included the peculiar mix of company of a doctor, an Indian man, an English dandy, and a solicitor and his wife was sure to attract attention walking down the street. And attention was the last thing any of them wanted.

"Poor thing. Lucy was her name, that poor woman dead on the floor. The lost wife believed to have died of poison. Died instead at the hand of blind vengeance. Poor thing, poor thing."

"Mm." Jonathan nodded, regarding their work. Once set, the shop blazed up beautifully. By morning, all that would remain would be ash. Scotland Yard would likely file the whole matter away as an accident, an inferno caused by carelessness in the kitchen. Nothing nefarious and certainly no connection to the murders of Fleet Street. Careless men. Well-meaning. But careless and lacking in imagination.

Mina turned and lightly kissed her husband, unmindful of the crowd, though all were fixated on the burning pie shop. "I'm tired. Let's go home, love."

"Answer me this." Jonathan said as he led her away. "Why claim Todd as a familiar?"

"I thought I might find a use for him." She swallowed and gazed up at him, ensuring her eyes were once again their lovely, crystal blue. "Were you afraid, Jonathan?"

"No." He smiled as he spoke, looking down at her. "Never."

"We'll always be together, right?"

"Forever." He leaned over to kiss her blond hair. "As long as I live."

-0-0-0-

Notes: I watched Sweeney Todd for the first time, wondered what kind of vampire familiar he'd make in the Hellsing universe (technically the members of Hellsing after the defeat of Dracula). Some League of Extraordinary Gentlemen references in here, too. (Movie version, since I actually liked the film and I haven't actually read the graphic novels. Which I need to do eventually.) And the character Sawney Beane and the Cats of Ulthar. In any case, this really didn't include as much as Sweeney Todd as I would've liked, but after looking this one-shot over, I found I liked it as it was. Not planning on making this a longer story, but I may do a companion piece. Not sure yet.

Anyway, you know the drill: I own none of these characters.

AutumnM


End file.
